28.1.12

High Speed Rail

India's dream of having its own bullet trains may yet become a reality, following Japan's offer of help during a visit of a delegation from that country earlier this month. Encouraged, the government wants to first set up a highspeed rail authority which will implement what will be a gigantic infrastructure project. “A note has been prepared and it will be submitted to the cabinet for approval,“ an official said.It is not known if the proposal will be included in the next rail budget. The government already has a plan to create six corridors for bullet trains that will run at 300 kmph, more than double the speed of the fastest Shatabdi and Rajdhani expresses. These are Pune-Mumbai-Ahmedabad, Delhi-Chandigarh-Amritsar, Howrah-Haldia, Hyderabad-Dornakal-Vijayawada-Chennai, Chennai-Bangalore-CoimbatoreErnakulam and Delhi-Agra-Lucknow-Varanasi-Patna.
A pre-feasibility study has already been done for Pune-Mumbai-Ahmedabad, the first to be implemented. A similar study is on for Delhi-Chandigarh-Amritsar and Howrah-Haldia. Recently, a Japanese consortium bagged the contract for such a study for Hyderabad-Dornakal-Vijaywada-Chennai. A prefeasibility study is expected to be commissioned and awarded for Chennai-Bangalore-Ernakulam soon. A French consultancy, Systra, in its report to the railways on the Pune-Mumbai-Ahmedabad corridor, has suggested that the project be taken up on a “build, finance, operate and transfer” basis.
This implies public-private partnership. The project could cost Rs 50,000 crore, apart from Rs 7,000 crore needed for rolling stock. It works out to Rs 100 crore per km. The traffic projection is 26.6 million passengers in 2021,going up to 104 million in 2041. All bullet train corridors will be completely fenced elevated tracks.
Kerala also wants a highspeed rail link between Kasargode in the north to state capital Thiruvananthapuram in the south. The state government recently received the centre's nod for it. The 580 km link will cost Rs 1,00,000 crore and be a PPP project.It is not clear if it will be merged with the Chennai-Bangalore-Eranakulam bullet train corridor.

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